A Team in Three Parts
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: Normalcy, then drama, then relative normalcy again with S.I.T. Genius. Begins Pre-Asia Circuit.


**I apparently had two in-progress final drafts for this story. They were so different from each other that I couldn't remember which one I'd intended to be the real final draft. I assume it was this one though, because of the formatting...**

The day Ali arrived at Singapore's Institute of Technology, he was immediately sent to become acquainted with Christopher. The reason for this was that they shared a single common factor, and that factor was age – twelve was an unusual age for a university student, which they both already knew, even without someone pointing it out to them.

"Ali Fajr, Christopher Lo. Christopher, please show him around until he gets the hang of things here."

Greetings were polite, curt, and the boy standing across from Ali – Chris – barely had time to nod his agreement before the man who'd escorted Ali into the building disappeared down the hallway. Probably telling himself he had better things to do than babysit brats, but more than likely also jealous of them.

"...He pronounced my name wrong. I told him what it was _five_ times."

Aside from that single comment, Ali's mind had been elsewhere at the time. He was in a foreign country, mostly unsupervised, and the campus was huge. There were dozens... _hundreds_ of pretty older girls waiting to meet him, Ali was sure of it.

"By the way," Ali added, interrupting some prim and proper apology of Chris's, the other boy trying to apologize for another person's mistake, "I'm just gonna call you Chris."

And why not? He'd already been doing it in his head. Chris didn't object either, which was good, because Ali would have continued even if he'd been told to stop. It wasn't like a name was a big deal – the two approaching girls he spotted out of the corner of his eye, however, were. He'd been planning on ditching the buddy system in a few minutes anyway. Tour of campus and all, would be useful, but he was a genius and he could have figured such things out on his own anyway.

Muttering an, "I'll see you later" Ali ran off in the hopes that socially awkward Chris wouldn't follow.

#

As it turned out, Ali's judgments were hasty and often uninformed despite his intellect. He'd been told this a few times at home, but had never really thought about it being true before. Being genius was sort of a like side thing for him, an additional benefit on top of being young, adorable and popular and an all-around great person, and-

It wasn't until a week later that Ali began to appreciate the company of someone his own age, sort of, as his own homesickness for India struck him as odd. Odd in the way that he hadn't expected it, hadn't thought his parents and his sister would actually be _right_ about something, nor had he imagined so much time would be spent with people looking down on him. The fact that it was in both a metaphorical and a literal sense only made it worse.

Chris was someone to talk to when the realization that he was still only a kid set in too deeply, despite how easily Ali had brushed him off at their first meeting. They were never completely honest with each other. Ali eventually grew over his longing for India by pretending it wasn't there. As for Chris...

He never knew whether Chris missed his home or not. Ali caught him off guard a few times, and the resulting bitterness that snuck into Chris's voice suggested he at least had something to be angry over. It never occurred to Ali that he should've tried prying, maybe just straightforwardly ask what. If he'd done that, maybe he could have prevented the PSYqualia incident from happening later on. But if he were to be brutally honest, he hadn't even wanted to know. Ali could remember word for word some of their lighter conversations though, if he thought about it for a while.

Most of them had actually revolved around Ali. Ali's hobbies and Ali's life.

At the time, he hadn't cared that Chris never talked about his own home or parents. Chris asked about India and Ali's family instead though, and that interest provided a boost to Ali's ego – fueled by pride, he eagerly answered all of Chris's questions, never noticing how closely guarded the other boy was. It might have started out as a mere distraction on Chris's end, to keep Ali from asking too many questions about himself, but after a while it came to look as if the other boy were generally interested in Ali's life.

Ali's mother was proud of his intellect, and his father was usually the one encouraging him to try harder. His older sister was the only one who knew how popular he was with women, but they got along well enough for her to not tell on him.

"She's six years older than I am, pretty cool, I guess. Mom and Dad would probably freak if they knew half the things she did."

Later, he'd also mentioned that it was was her dream to be a hair stylist, maybe even as an employee of Bollywood.

"Our family's rich already, so it isn't impossible."

Then he'd explained what Bollywood was:

"Kind of like the capital of Indian film making. You really don't know any of this?"

It was strange, having met someone who knew nothing about Bollywood. Chris was naïve like that in a lot of ways, he'd noticed. At first, Ali had found it amusing.

And then it became pitiful, when he realized how non-existent Chris's social life really was.

Depending on the day, Chris either had more time or less to talk with Ali. There where also days when he had _significantly_ less time, and several occasions where Ali went for days without seeing him at all. Their conversations were eventually reduced to comparing notes, course work, and casual games of Vanguard once the winter semester began.

Ali also had his own agenda to follow though, so it didn't feel that unnatural. They were both busy young _boys._ Ali only had time for _girls_ on a daily basis.

When Lee enrolled, the process nearly repeated itself. Chris was polite as usual, Ali more casual, and Lee like a more terse and obviously unhappy version of Chris. Ali tried his best to get along with both of them, and all the while failing to notice...

Everything.

Life as a full-time student had kept him busy, that was Ali's excuse. He had no idea what was going on between Lee and Chris, but he knew how the three of them were different. Lee always acted annoyed when Ali said he didn't care about losing; Chris merely looked confused, until he learned how to hide it.

**Hm... so here's an old summary I wrote for this story on the first draft: "Ali takes charge of the Minis and their social life, basically". That didn't happen as much as planned. I have no idea why I write about Ali so much. I have a few other partially completed Team Minis stories, and Ali is an attention hog in those too.**

**By the way, I have no idea if Bollywood is at all recognized in Singapore or not – but it's Chris, so let's say he doesn't get to watch movies much regardless.**

**This is also one of those things that, no matter how I look at it, it doesn't feel complete. I think I've already expended most of my pre-Asia Circuit theories about these three though. While I do plan on finishing this eventually, I just... need more ideas...**


End file.
